One Way Or Another
Deserted by your friends and surrounded by your enemies, it seems all hope is lost. Only one person strands between you and certain death. Cast * Sam Yao * Sara Smith * Evan Deaubl Plot Three Down Runner 8 has tried to raise Sam, but it looks like Van Ark is jamming the signal. She hands you a semi-automatic from the weapons cache. What Was Anyone Before? Runner 8 weighs up your best routes for survival before admitting that this the kind of stuff that she lives for. Dead Inside She muses about the effect the apocalypse has had on everyone, and how it's during times like this that you find out who people really are. Straight Sets You’re being herded; it must be Van Ark. You spot a plane in the distance which must be looking for you; your only hope is to hide along the treeline. Fast As You Can Runner 8 is ready to go out in a blaze of glory, but the gunfire is not aimed at her. It's Runner 7; he's shooting down zoms and clearing your path back to Abel. Traitor Sam informs you your mission was not what it initially seemed. It was to detect a traitor in your midst. Transcript SARA SMITH: I’ve tried raising Sam on all available frequencies. Van Ark must be jamming the signal. Didn’t you always think it would come to this, Five? You, me, no radio contact, coming on for dusk, a bunch of zombies, and a bag full of guns? Here, take this semiautomatic and the – nice! Laser-sighted Beretta! Yup, you take those. But I’m keeping the UZI. We’ll save the HK for later. growls, gunshots, splatters That’s three down. Only what, another sixty to go? We need to find a better vantage point. Come on, run! zombies screech SARA SMITH: Nice shot! Dead between the dangling-out eyeballs. Looks like we bought ourselves a bit of time. Second waves looks more like shamblers attracted by the noise. If we jog westwards from here, we should – no, northwest. The water tower to the west is the best vantage point, but northwest gives us a choice of three – church tower, railway bridge, and that old farmhouse in a pinch. Keep moving! Truth is, you know, I love this. I do! You can probably tell. I never feel more alive than when I’m – growls Duck down there, Five! zombie splatters Got him. Yeah, this is what makes me feel alive. Running, thinking on my feet, quick decisions, tactics. When they said the other week that with luck, the zombie war would be over, you know, I’m ashamed to admit it, but I was a little disappointed. Wouldn’t you miss it, Five? I know you would. Wouldn’t you miss this? The running, and the people relying on us, and the sense of mission and purpose. I mean, before the apocalypse, what were you? laughs Sorry, but what was anyone? Some kind of schlub, sitting behind a desk, worrying about getting soft around the middle, watching TV at night, drinking on the weekends. I mean, wouldn’t you miss – growls Yeah, wouldn’t you just miss the pack of forty zombies heading in from your right, Eight? Come on, Five, wheel away from them towards those trees. Hurry! empty gun clicks SARA SMITH: Out of ammo on the UZI. Down to handguns. It’s okay, though, we’re – well, we’re not much closer to Abel, but we’re not much further away, and we can probably make cover by nightfall. They’ll have locked the gates at Abel, but we should find somewhere to climb up and be safe to sleep. Those zoms cut off exactly the route I was planning to take, and by the looks of it, there are still a lot milling about in that field. Northeast, then, towards town. We should find an outlying building for a night on the roof, at least. I suppose, when it comes right down to it, a thing like this lets you know who you really are, eh, Five? Runner Seven – he seems like a leader, but really, he’s out for himself. Not that that’s a bad thing. I understand it. Not everyone’s made for self-sacrifice. But there you go. Pressure cooker like this, you find out things about yourself. Sam’s just what he seems, I think. Trying to do his best, muddling through. I doubt the entire apocalypse has changed him one iota, not really. But Jamie - the new Runner Ten, when he happens to turn up – he’s quiet, but I think his whole self has been turned upside down by this. He never knew he could do what he’s done. He’ll never be the same afterwards, not even if we put society back together. And me… I think I never knew I was ruthless. laughs I had to kill my husband and my two boys and I barely felt it. Not then, and not now. I feel that they’re gone, of course, I feel that every day, but it doesn’t feel any different knowing I did it. It just… well, it just had to be done. Sometimes I wonder… sometimes, I really think I might be dead inside, that there’s nothing left of me worth anything anyway. Nothing worth keeping when all this is over. Still, keep on doing what has to be done. Which in this case, is out of this clump of trees, and then hard turn to the – ah, no, that won’t work. Twenty fast zoms coming in from over there, see them? We’ll have to change our route again. Does it feel to you, Five – and I don’t mean to alarm you – but does it feel to you like we’re being herded? empty gun clicks SARA SMITH: Ack, out of ammo on that one, too! And they’re still coming. I think I’ve worked out where they’re taking us. Should have known it ages ago. I’m just so stupid! They’re cutting us off except for one small corridor. What’s the betting they’re herding us directly towards Van Ark? It’s the right general direction from where he took you when you were tied to the back of his truck. Yes, I think – I’m sure I know what’s going on. Still, we’ll think a way out of it. That’s what we do. In a way, after what you told me, I almost admire him! Immortality - crazy, but at least he’s thinking big, you know? I don’t know, “admire”’s the wrong word. “Understand”. I understand him. He wants something. He does everything it takes to make it happen. You know, when I was a teenager, one of my friends at school had parents who belonged to one of those snooty tennis clubs with private instructors and grass courts. She always absolutely pulverized me at tennis any time we had a knock-about on court in the park. That summer, I decided I was going to beat her! I bought myself twenty balls, and went to the courts every day to learn to serve, and practiced against a pebbledash wall, because they return the ball unevenly. I probably practiced six hours a day for six weeks. Didn’t matter if I was tired or bored, I just kept on going. When she got back from her holiday, she couldn’t return a single one of my shots, not one. I beat her in straight sets. That’s the thing, Five. If you have a goal, and you really want it, you have to be prepared to do the thing that no one else will do. You have to take more trouble than anyone else would think possible. Well, that is interesting. No zoms cutting us off in this direction, but – yup. That’s a plane coming for us. Better run for the treeline! engine running SARA SMITH: That’s it! If they’re aiming to take us out, they’ll find it harder with the trees giving us cover. growl Ah, dammit! I was sure there was no movement here. Where did these zoms come from? Ah, they must have been waiting for us here. He’s really playing with us. Well, Five, would you rather take your chances of a nice clean death by machine gun fire from the plane, or risk being ripped to shreds and having your intestines eaten by the shambling dead? Yup! Me, too. Back out of cover. Let’s see if we can lose these zoms. Might as well go out north by northwest style, right, Five? gunfire Yeehaw! Come at me, pilot! splatter Wait, that’s not for us, that’s - EVAN DEAUBL: Don’t expect me to do this again, that’s all. Head for Abel right now. I’ll clear a path for you. SARA SMITH: Come on, Five, fast as you can. We might just make it back in time before they lock the gates. SAM YAO: static I repeat, can you hear me? SARA SMITH: We can hear you, Sam, loud and clear. We’re maybe a mile and a half away? Should just squeak it before curfew if we keep on going. SAM YAO: Ah, that’s – that’s tremendous. That really is, it’s just – ah, that’s good news. Seven and Five both with you? SARA SMITH: Five’s here. Seven’s… uh, on the negative side, he’s not coming back, but on the plus side, he didn’t get eaten. SAM YAO: I, uh… SARA SMITH: He stole the plane. He’s gone. SAM YAO: Oh… oh, right. laughs He always did want to go to the Caribbean. SARA SMITH: You’re not bothered about the vital plane? SAM YAO: No, it – it turns out that wasn’t the reason for the mission at all. SARA SMITH: We got the equipment, at least. SAM YAO: Yeah, yep, that’ll be useful, but not as essential as they told you. SARA SMITH: So what? SAM YAO: After what happened when we tried the zombie spray, well, you know, at first we doubted the doc and Paula, but the doc proved the formula works. And then we thought there’d been some mistake, but it starts to look more and more like - SARA SMITH: Sabotage. SAM YAO: Yeah. So, the Major thought - send out groups of runners, tell each of them they’re picking up something vital, and - SARA SMITH: And see which one gets intercepted by zoms. SAM YAO: Yeah, because whoever knew that they were receiving vital equipment - SARA SMITH: - would somehow contact Van Ark and tell him, so whoever the zombies went after - SAM YAO: - had to be the group Van Ark knew about, yeah. SARA SMITH: And it was us. SAM YAO: Yeah. SARA SMITH: Meaning, in our little group that set out from Abel - SAM YAO: Yeah. One of you is a traitor.Category:Mission Category:Season Two